Apple Beat: The Enduring, Elusive, MacBook Air
Wednesday, May 21, 2014 at 9:19AM 
By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla
When the first MacBook Air was released in 2008, it was an expensive and somewhat impractical subportable notebook that pushed the boundaries of thinness and portability above all else. It wasn’t very powerful, battery life was so-so and the lack of I/O limited its appeal.
It did introduce unibody construction to the mainstream, later on SSD (Solid State Drives) and changed the way Apple built its hardware from that point onwards.
Six years on, the MacBook Air has evolved into a versatile, powerful all-day computer and possibly the most popular Apple portable ever made. During yesterday’s Microsoft Surface Pro 3 reveal in New York, the Redmond Giant’s executives poked barbs at the MacBook Air as a representative of “The Laptop,” their own product, the third generation Surface tablet, being touted as more than just a hybrid device but a replacement for laptops.